


At the End of Everything, he Remains

by you_cant_eat_books_sweetheart



Category: RIORDAN Rick - Works, The Kane Chronicles - Rick Riordan
Genre: #GivetheGodsofDeathaVacation2019, Anubis and Walt share a body, Anubis character study, Anubis is done with life, Egyptian God’s are real, F/M, He’s basically Egyptian Thanatos, I can’t not talk about death in his character study?, Multi, Other, Rick Riordan - Freeform, Riordan verse - Freeform, Salt, Sanubis - Freeform, Uncle Rick - Freeform, Wadie - Freeform, idk how to tag, is that type of a relationship called a triangle?, kinda sorta polygamy, not sure, rated t for mentions of death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-03
Updated: 2019-07-03
Packaged: 2020-06-03 05:05:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,336
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19456951
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/you_cant_eat_books_sweetheart/pseuds/you_cant_eat_books_sweetheart
Summary: He lives between the world of immortality and mortals, death doesn’t pick sides. His job is just to collect the remains, he’s the cleanup crew, the custodian (but with a cooler name).





	At the End of Everything, he Remains

Anubis has seen more people die than he cares to remember, more people than he can count. It’s why he doesn’t get attached, why he doesn’t bond with mortals like the other gods. It’s easier, he knows, to stand on the outside- to ignore them, and only come to collect them when everything is over.

He over estimates them half of the time, and doesn’t think enough of them the rest. They’re damningly beautiful all of them, soaked and sweat and blood, salty tears streaming down their dirt caked bodies. Because it’s war, again, and Montu demands blood. It’s always this way, people say war and death are friends and Anubis doesn’t understand this- war is more like his boss if anything. Giving him more work than he already had, work that he already couldn’t keep up with.

He breaks when he remembers them, the few he can truly recall. Sure, he’s seen a thousand faces screaming in grief clutching festering bodies. It’s almost like they know it ahead of time, even the quickest deaths can’t be instant- nothing is instant and painless.

He wishes it were that simple.

Maybe he’d be less attached, more comfortable letting them go. (It’s a lie, he knows it, he’d still kiss their foreheads as he gathers their souls in his arms). He remembers hundreds of millennia worth of people, billions of faces overlapping and changing so fast that he only gets a chance to see their last breath.

(That’s probably why he doesn’t understand humans, he can never get a good look at them. The eyes are the windows to the soul, but he sees only glass and that’s why he pulls down the shutters.)

He doesn’t like the other gods, it’s as simple as that really. They see mortals as puny and extinguishable, pieces in a chess game or some magical puzzle that they get to build without end. Humans, the dependable creatures of habit that they are, never realise how little control they have over their life and how much of it they live for someone else (and how little they can do to change that). Gods don’t change either, they still use them without care or regret. Take innocent peoples life forms and inhabit them for selfish purposes.

(The could’ve had normal life’s if they wouldn’t have done that. But then again, they would’ve just chosen someone else.)

He lives between the world of immortality and mortals, death doesn’t pick sides. His job is just to collect the remains, he’s the cleanup crew, the custodian (but with a cooler name).

Sometimes it hurts, he hates it and cries (because he is mortal with emotions, he’s not sure if that’s a blessing or a curse). Other times his chest feels tight but buoyant, like theirs helium in his lungs and he’s a little bit drunk. Sometimes it’s just numbness, an overwhelming amount of nothing where he just does what he’s told and asks no questions. It’s just another day on the job of collecting souls.

(He wants a vacation but there’s nobody to take his place)

Occasionally, someone wanders into his life. He tries to ignore them, move on, sometimes he succeeds. Sometimes however, they’re too beautiful and their eyes are always more alive than his because they haven’t seen the things he’s seen (their windows are open and they aren’t fogged- he can’t stand to watch them sleep however, they’ll eventually not wake up and he’ll have to take care of that problem). They’re doctors, philosophers, teachers, they’re poor and rich. But the thing he loves most of all about them is that their human.

They rarely make it into history books, and if they do it’s never with his name attached. (Most people don’t think they’re important enough to remember. He does. He remembers all of them. Every last one, he loves them).

Sadie Kane becomes the most famous, she returns Ra to all of his former glory.

(If nothing else he’s glad to have a mortal body to inhabit now, it’s something he wouldn’t normally like or even allow, but the gods can’t tell him he can’t see her.)

He wants to spend whatever time this increasingly deteriorating mortal body can give him with her.

(His name is Walt, and they aren’t a perfect combination but they make it work. Because they love Sadie, and she loves them.)

They teach each other things (there no use for microwaves in the underworld- he’s got every chef he could ever want at the snap of his fingers, why would he know how to work one?) and they try to learn from each other (no, Walt, double step left not right- you don’t want to step on her toes do you?).

But it’s okay, because, sure it’s the most difficult dance he’s ever navigated to be with a mortal. But for some reason, she’s a little different from the rest- and he thinks that maybe he loves her just a little bit more.

(Maybe it’s a lot, he can’t tell anymore- can he have a vacation please? His arms are tired, he’s been lifting dead weights too long by this point.)

Sometimes he disappears for days, and she just accepts it (Walt doesn’t tell her either, it’s an unspoken agreement that Anubis’s thoughts aren’t to be spoken unless he’s given the sign of approval). She sometimes ask questions, but doesn’t pry to much “godly duties” is acceptable to her.

He does different sorts of things, sometimes he helps pass judgement (he picks a lot of people up and carries them to the afterlife), sometimes he helps the other gods collect bodies (the Greeks have had so many wars lately, of course they’re behind).

(Walt doesn’t talk about that either.)

Other times he doesn’t actually do his job. He just go sits in a graveyard somewhere sometimes he just talks to Walt other times he’s powerful enough to separate their thoughts so they can’t think their own thoughts for a little bit. He likes New Orleans because these people scream with joy when people die, not sadness, they celebrate the life they lived, they don’t mourn the things they didn’t get to do. It’s refreshing.

(It’s like waking up and breathing in the cold air of a winters morning after having been in sweltering heat for months).

Sometimes, just sometimes, he’s able to separate then for a few seconds. It’s nice, to feel his own body again without supporting the dead weight of a dying mortal. If you’ve ever shared a room with a sibling imagine sharing every thought with them, every movement- except its worse because they’re basically a stranger. Also, it’s doesn’t matter how smart they are, they haven’t seen what you’ve seen, and they may be able to understand some of your view points. But they haven’t lived your life, so they won’t arrive to all the same conclusions as you.

(He is told to “lighten up” far to frequently and he’s about to snap the next person who says it’s head off).

Anubis wants you to try watching history on repeat, the same key characters with a hundred different names. They all make choices that sacrifices millions of lives of men who think they’re making a choice, that they’re doing something honourable, that they’re dying to kill the enemy.

(They’re not, the clash with him in the middle and he picks up the pieces every time.)

People say death is scary, say that it hurts (and it does, like he said- nothing is instant) but death is also treatment, medicine or a doctor. He picks up the broken shards of humanity and pieces them into art for the underworld.

He is Anubis, he is the collector of souls, he is in love with Sadie Kane, he is imprisoned in the body of a dying mortal named Walt, he is humanities custodian, he is an immortal who feels like he’s going to die, but most of all, he is doomed.

(To an eternity of us).

**Author's Note:**

> My tumblr: @the-ghost-king 
> 
> Things I would like to say about this piece:
> 
> \- The gods of death in riordanverse don’t get nearly enough recognition or thanks for as much as they do for mankind and the other gods and that needs to change.
> 
> \- For some reason, personally, I’ve always viewed those gods as more emotional than the others. They have to grapple with life and death and the human emotional spectrum constantly, they aren’t removed from human society and therefore have to be a part of it in some ways. (Maybe I’m wrong, but even if their emotional spectrum is different they have to be very empathetic to carry out their job- collecting and judging souls at their worst and best moments).
> 
> And finally, thank you for taking the time to read this. As something I wrote quite a few years ago I don’t feel like it’s anything amazing, however I do feel it’s good to see how far I’ve come. I also feel like this piece reflects some similarity on my current style.
> 
> Thank you again for taking the time to read this and my ramblings!


End file.
